Method of making phonograph records



June 27, 1933. J. REILLY El AL METHOD OF MAKING PHONOGRAPH RECORDS Filed June 4, 1928 7 7 7 2 Ww Q INVENTOR /6 aZ E6 72 Mel ATTORNEY I Patented June 27, 1933 UNITED STATES PATENT I QFFEQE JOSEPH. REILLY, OF NEW YORK, N. Y., AND HAL T. BEAN S, 0F PALISAIDE, NEW J ERSEY ASSIG-NORS, BY MESN'E ASSIG-NIVIENTS, TO DURIUM PRODUCTS CORPORATION, A COR- PORATION OF DELAWARE METHOD OF MAKING PHONOGBAPI-I RECORDS Application filed June 4, 1928.

The present invention relates to a phonograph record and method of making the same.

More especially, the present invention relates to phonograph records of the non-breakable type wherein the body of the record comprises a somewhat flexible material such as for example, paperboard. This paperboard or other body substance carries a surface material or coating which is anchored thereto and which is of suiiicient depth and hardness when finished to retain record grooves which are embossed therein and to withstand the wear of playing apparatus such as an ordinary phonograph needle mounted in the ordinary reproducer.

In accordance with the present invention, the coating preferably is of such character as to infiltrate with the paper fibers to a sufficient depth to thoroughly anchor the coating to the paper and to retain a sufficient thickness of material on the paper so that when the embossing operation takes place, the record grooves will not be depressed through the coating, and that all of the paper fibers will be covered by the coating to a suflicient depth to prevent any roughness in the record groove due to the paper fibers. Preferably, the coating is of such a character as to be heat hardened so that the embossing operation may 'take place with a heated die.

Another and important element in the present invention is a phonograph record having a substantially compressible body portion comprising a sheet of paper stock with the record coating thereon of such character as to permit the making of phonograph records on a printing or embossing press, which is like a printing press except that it is adaptable to apply heavy pressure, whereby the records may be quickly manufactured in quantity from a plurality of dies. This necessitates a coating which may be embossed under such pressure as may be produced by a printing or embossing press and which coating will be suificiently hard after the embossing operation to hold the full impressions. Then the embossed sheet is severed into individual records.

Another preferred method is to impress the sheet against the die by a rolling pres- Serial No. 282,719.

The present invention also comprises the method of making up the coating for surfacing the paper stock for the records; and it furthermore comprises the method of producing the record from such coated materials .as will hereinafter be more fully explained.

It is realized that the present invention may be practiced by variations of this disclosure, and therefore the disclosure is to be understood as illustrative and not in the limiting sense.

Other and further objects of the present invention will in part be obvious and will in part be pointed out hereinafter by reference to the accompanying drawing forming a part of this specification.

Fig. 1 is an enlarged sectional View through a portion of the coated paper stock prepared for making the record.

Fig. 2 is an enlarged sectional view through a portion of the coated stock after the record has been made and illustrates the record grooves therein.

Fig. 3 illustrates a bed of heated record dies, with the dies anchored in position over the heating elements.

Fig. 4: is a diagrammatic view illustrating the production of records by means of a roller platen printing press wherein a relative movement is provided between the platen and the bed carrying the heated dies.

Fig. 5 illustrates diagrammatically the use of a movable jaw type platen printing press with the dies mounted upon a heating member carried by one jaw of the press, and with the coated material carried upon the other jaw of the press.

Various materials, preferably of a fibrous nature may be used as a body or basis for the present records on which to apply the coating but the preferred material is a paper vof substantial toughness with a sufiiciently smooth surface so that the roughness of the paper will not manifest itself unduly in the coated surface, The surface to be coated should be preferably smooth and the porosity of the paper should be such as to permit sufficient of the coating to soak into the coated surface of the paper to form an intimate bond between the coating and the paper so that the coating may not be pulled away without breaking the body of the paper itself. Preferably, the paper should be about one thirtysecond of an inch in thickness and may comprise a stiff board-like paper such as paper known in the trade as kraft, or other suitable paper stock.

The coating composition may be made up in different amounts and in varying procedures, but the preferred procedure and one somewhat thicker mixture.

example of proportions of materials used is as follows :A metal container provided with heating and cooling means (either a jacket or coils) and also provided with mechanism for rapidly stirring or mixing, receives 1000 cc. (1100' grams) of commercial 40% formaldehyde, to which is added 50 grams of dry to sodium sulphite, (M2803), and the materials are stirred until the sodium sulphite is thoroughly dissolved. Then, 50 grams of finely ground commercial resorcinol (meta di-hydroxy benzene) is slowly added. Resorcinol is normally a solid phenol product. The first reactionis that of cooling and then a rapid rise in temperature occurs after the resorcinol is added. The container is cooled so as to maintain the temperature as near 30 C. as is conveniently possible. After the first batch of resorcinol is added and the temperature is brought down to 30 0., a second portion of ground resorcinol is added, for example, about 50 grams, and this procedure of adding resorcinol and keeping the temperature low is continued until 1000 grams of resorcinol have been added. This step in the process should occupy approximately about one-half hour. After all the resorcinol is added and the temperature has been kept as near 30 C.'as possible, a suflicient time is permitted to elapse until there is no further temperature rise by the resorcinol reaction and then the container is heated to about 50 0., and the solution is now a thin mobile liquid. The solution is held at 50 C. for a period of fifteen to twenty minutes when the viscosity of the liquid is noticeably increased until a proper viscosity is attained. The proper viscosity will vary somewhat with the nature of the paper or other material to be coated, in that a dense surface will take a thinner mixture to obtain the desired results and a more absorbent surface will require a It may be desirable to spread out a test portion of the coating upon the paper to be used and permit the same to dry in order to determine whether the viscosity is such as to secure a proper and permanent bond with the paper and at the same time make a thorough coating.

lVhen the material has attained the proper viscosity, theheating'is stopped and the solution is cooled to substantially 25 C. as rapidly as possible. During the cooling operation and before the temperature of 25 C. is reached, 1000 cc. (800 grams) of ethyl alcohol are added as a solvent and thinner, and then a mixture of 200 grams of levigated alumina which has been thoroughly mixed with 600 grams of Turkey red oil (sulphonated castor oil) by grinding the alumina with the oil in the samemanner that a pigment of paint is ground in oil. After the ethyl alcohol and the alumina ground in Turkey red oil are added to the solution, the composition is thoroughly mixed by the stirring.

The mixture is stirred and cooled and 80 grams of aniline is added. During the addition of the aniline, there tends to be a heat evolution and the mixture tends to thicken. After this reaction has somewhat subsided, the coating is ready for use and should be used within a period of two hours after the mixture has been completed for the reason that the mixture on standing tends to thicken and may reach a stage so that it is not of the proper viscosity for thoroughly coating of the paper or other material. The thickening may be obviated somewhat, or somewhat overcome by the addition of ethyl alcohol.

here Turkey red oil is mentioned, any other sulphonated water soluble oil may be used, or sulphonated fattyacids such as sulphonated oleic acid. This group of materials as a matter of convenienceis designated in the claims hereinafter as the A group.

lVhere aniline was added, other materials such as mono-phenol; or naphthol; or aromatic amines such as aniline; or naphthyl amines; or phenol esters of phosphoric acid, such as triphenyl phosphate or tricresyl phosphate; or phenol (that is commercial liquid carbolic acid) may be used and these materials are arbitrarily designated in the claims B group may be used singly or in combination. For example, a combination which may be used is grams of phenol and 80 grams ofaniline. These proportions are in accordance with the formula previously given and may be substituted where the 80 grams of aniline alone have been mentioned. It is also appreciated that other combinations of thesemembers of the B group may be substituted in the formula.

It is also to be understood that where ethyl alcohol has been mentioned at this point or in other points in the description of the solucomplete.

ried on at ordinary climatic temperatures or room temperature, and after the paper is coated, it is permitted to dry. This drying operation may be either at room temperature or by drying ovens wherein care should be taken not to subject the coated paper to excessive heat for any substantial period of time. Drying should be continued to such a point that the coated paper may be stacked without the uncoated face of one sheet sticking to the coated face of another under reasonable pressure conditions. The paper is now ready for the embossing operation.

In the embossing operation, a die carrying the record beads which form the grooves, is heated from between 150 C. and 200 C. This die is impressed against the coated surface with sufiicient'pressure to cause a complete cast to be made from the die so that the composition coating on the paper goes into the most intimate recesses to form the tone grooves, etc., on the die face. In the pressing operation, the coating material appears to go through a cycle of changes. The

' first portion of the cycle appears to be a softening of the material under influence of heat, which cycle is short and then the cycle appears to quickly change into an action of hardening under the influence of heat. This hardening action appears to accelerate very rapidly for a time and then to continue slowly for sometime after the heat has been removed, so that records taken immediately from the dies ordinarily are not sufficiently hard for immediate playing but where records have been seasoned for twenty-four hours, the surface will stand repeated playing on the ordinary commercial phonograph with the ordinary commercial type of needle without suffering substantial wear. The records come from the die substantially fiat and retain a substantially fiat shape, in that the surface coating material does not appear to contract or expand and thereby cause the records to curl.

It has been observed that by the omission of either or both of the materials of group B or group A the record tends to curl and the surface is very easily cracked and the material is brittle whereas with the addition of these substances, these defects are not encountered to a serious extent, in that the surface appears to be tougher, the impression appears to be better and the record is more That is, with the omission of the substances of the B group, the material does not seem to emboss as deeply to form the tone grooves, and with the omission of the substances of the A group,- the record becomes brittle and tends to curl, and other undesirable effects occur.

The levigated alumina is added for the purpose of providing an' abrasive which grinds the point of the needle to fit the tone groove and it is to be understood that other abrasive materials may be utilized for this purpose.

Referring now to the drawing, Fig. 1 shows an enlarged section through a piece of prepared paper comprising a paper body 1, a surface coating 2 and an anchoring zone 4: wherein the coating material has infiltrated between the fibers of the paper.

Fig. 2 illustrates a paper backing 1 supporting the surface 2 in which tone grooves 5 have been pressed and it will be observed that the coating material has been driven down into the paper in the valleys of the tone groove; that is, the impression is not made entirely in the coating but is also carried through the coating to the paper.

The cross section illustrated in this Fig. 2 is'shown in proportional relation to the cross section illustrated in Fig. 1, in that in Fig. 1, the paper has been coated but has not yet been embossed, while in Fig. 2 the embossing operation has been completed. It will be observed after the embossing operation that the total thickness of the record is substantially decreased in all of the three that the infiltrated coating is securely anchored to the paper fibers, which fibers eX- tend down into the compacted paper body 1.

Fig. 3 illustrates a plurality of record dies 6 mounted upon electrically heated units 7 so that the dies may be heated up as above specified, and when a proper temperature is reached, the pressing operation may be carried out.

F ig. 4 illustrates diagrammatically a bed of dies 6 on heating members 7 all of which are carried upon a bed 8 having a relative movement to a platen roll 9 so that when a sheet of coated paper 10 properly prepared has been laid over the dies and the roller 9 has passed over the surface of the dies, a plurality of records are simultaneously embossed on the sheet. In this operation, it will be observed that the zone of pressure is substantially a traveling line which is most effective at the point A and thereby a heavy pressure may be delivered over a very small area which successively travels from one end of the sheet to the other, thereby thoroughly embossing the die faces into the coated face of the sheet.

Fig. 5 diagrammatically illustrates a plurality of dies 6 mounted upon heating elements 7 that are carried on a jaw or platen 11 of a printing press of the closing jaw type, and a sheet of coated material 10 is carried on the opposite jaw 12 of such press so that the sheet does not come into Contact with the hot dies until just the moment before pressure is applied, it being understood that there is a relative movement between the jaws 11 and 12 of the press so that the dies are impressed against the coated paper with sufficientforce to make complete impressions. lV-here a plurality of records are simultaneously embossed on a single sheet, the sheet is then cutinto sections, each comprising an individual record. r

In pressing or making of the record, there appears to be a critical element as to time cycle. The coating on the sheet acquires a substantial stiffening or hardening under influence of heat in a very short period of time, but the full hardening usually takes a longer time. It therefore follows that if the pressure for embossing the record is applied too slowly, the coating on the record begins to harden before a complete depth of impression is reached; that is, the coating will stifien sufficiently 'to prevent complete penetration of the tone ribs or beads on the die into the coating, even if very heavy pressure is slow- 1y applied, A proper impression therefore will not ordinarily be made where the pressure is applied very slowly, as by ordinary hydraulic press methods, whichare commonly used in the making of phonograph records. On the contrary, if the impression is made too quickly, and then the pressure is too quickly released, the hardening action will not have progressed sufficiently in the cycle to hold or lock'the paper fibers to retain a full impression of the record. The paper fibers beneath the coating tend to expand to their original shape and thereby obliterate a portion of the impression to the detriment of the record, or this eifectmay be due to the hard character of the material when cold and which if not heated suiiiciently to soften does not take the impression. At any rate, the practice shows that where pressure is applied too quickly and too quickly released, an imperfect impression is the result. This appears to be due to the behavior of the coating which appears first to soften under the influence of heat, and then to quickly harden, and unless the hardening cycle has started before pressure is released, the impression may be lost. Furthermore, where the impression is made very quickly and the pressure quickly released, the material does not appear to undergo sufiicient of the hardening cycle to cause this cycle to continue on, and underthese conditions, the cycle seems to stop and the material seems to crystallize so that it will break off or may be brushed from the surface of the paper, or this effect may be due to the fact that when a quick forceful impression is applied, the material is shattered and broken up and sufficient time has not elapsed to permit the particles to melt together. A proper impression is one wherein the full embossing pressure is quickly ap plied and is retained for a v sufiicient time (which is short) to permit the material to have progressed from the softening stage to 'thehardening stage so that when the pressure is released, the material has sufficient strength to resist the natural expansion of the paperand to hold the perfect full im-- anchored to the body of the record the ridges between the tone grooves are very strong and may therefore be very narrow. This permits of increased tone grooves per radial inch of the record without danger of the record breaking down during the normal life of the r cord.

Embossing may be carried out on a roller press such as illustrated in Fig. l where a relative movement between the roller and the heated dies is'not too fast to permit the impression line to make the impression and release the pressure before the full reaction has taken place. It may also be carried out in the type of press diagrammatically illustrated in Fig. 5 wherein there is a slight dwell of operations after the heated dies have quickly been brought against the coated paper. Actual use of the material exactly as described in this specification has demonstrated that records of remarkable toughness and resistance to wear can be produced by the foregoing methods and materials.

A record made in accordance with the present invention is of such toughness and flexibility as to be suitable for mailing Without 1 danger of breakage and also may be stored or stacked with less care than is necessary with the records heretofore in the art.

Another and further important ,attrie bute of the present record is its playing quality. The surface of the record when completed, while being hard and very smooth, in that the coating is a continuous integral surface, also is slightly flexible. This flexible coating permits the full cushioning effect of 1 the paper to the weight of the playing needle, the result being a record which plays with a minimum of needle -or mechanical noise. The paper backing actsas a shock absorber which takes up or does not produce the extraneous vibrations on the needle. The tone grooves therefore are substantially the only operative element which acts on the needle to transmit sound and therefore the record plays with great fidelity to the original tone recorded. V

A still further feature of this record is that the surface coating appears to have the same thermal coefficient of expansion as paper and therefore does not tend to curl or crack under 'what flexible, it is very tough, and since the material between the tone grooves is well influence of climatic changes. Since the record surface of the record is a heat hardened material, this record does not tend to soften in tropical climates. Further, heat produced by the friction ofthe needle during playing does not tend to soften or break down the tone grooves, as is the case with other records in the art. p

Wherever the word paper is used in the specification and the claims, it is intended to cover all forms of fibrous sheet material regardless of the stock from which said sheet is manufactured.

The novel method of producing phonograph records on a power operated press of the printing press of embossing press type facilitates producing of phonograph records of great speed and with maximum economy. And since the records are flexible, and of light weight, they may be mailed and trans ported without danger of injury.

This disclosure is addressed to those skilled in the art and while complete disclosure has been made as to the preferred materials and methods to carry out these inventions, the

explanations as to various phenomena which have been observed are largely a matter of opinion but are given in order to enable these inventions to be practiced without difficulty when this patent expires.

The claims of new and useful inventions are:

1. The method of making phonograph records comprising coatinga sheet paper body of cardboard thickness with a thin coating comprising a resorcinol condensate base soaked into the paper on one side thereof and adapted to be heat hardened, heating a record die at a temperature between 150 C. and 200 (3., impressing the die against the coated surface with sufficient pressure to form a complete cast from the die and retaining the pressure against the coated surface until after the heat hardening cycle of the coating has progressed suficiently to sustain the impression and then withdrawing the die. a 2. The method of making phonograph records comprising coating a sheet of fibrous material with record surface coating having a resorcinol condensate base adapted to be heat softened and then heat hardened substantially as described, and impressing a heated tone groove forming die against the coated surface with sufficient rapidity to cause the full impression to be made during the heat softening cycle of the coating and then retaining the pressure of said die against said paper until the heat hardening cycle has progressed sufliciently to retain a complete impression from said die.

3. The method of manufacturing phonograph records comprising coating a sheet of *cardboard thickness paper with a liquid heat hardening material adapted to penetrate into the fibers of the paper, drying the said coating on the paper, and subjecting the dried coating to heated dies to mold sound grooves into said coating material and cause a chemical reaction which renders the material into a hardened product with the under portion thereof interlocked with the said paper sheet.

4. The method of manufacturing phonograph records comprising coating a sheetof cardboard thickness paper with a liquid adapted to penetrate beneath the surface of the paper and to form a heat hardened compound, drying the coated sheet, and simultaneously applying a plurality of heated record dies under pressure to said coating to cause a chemical reaction to take place which forms the heat hardened surface into a plurality of record members carrying the sound grooves, and separating said record members into individual record discs.

5. The method of making phonograph records comprising coating a sheet of cardboard thickness paper with a resorcinol condensation solution which penetrates beneath the surface of the paper, drying the coating, applying a heated die under pressure quickly to said coatingto soften the coating and mold sound record grooves therein, and holding the heated die in contact with the coating after the molding operation to permit the coating to harden to interlock the coating to the cardboard base and form a thin flexible heat hardened surface film of sufficient toughness to withstand a phonograph needle when in use.

JOSEPH REILLY. HAL T. BEANS. 

